Was a Secret Service sniper really ordered not to shoot Donald Trump’s attempted assassin?

There has been a wave of conspiracy theories circulating since the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump last week.

Emerging from within both sides of the political aisle, these theories are perhaps to be expected given the historic (and seemingly picture-perfect) nature of the shooting, but they have been debunked almost as quickly as they have arisen. 

One theory emerging since the shooting, which took place at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, was that a law enforcement sniper assigned to Trump’s team was ordered not to shoot the attempted assassin by the head of the Secret Service. So how exactly did this theory begin circulating, and is there any truth to it?

Was a Secret Service sniper really ordered not to shoot Trump’s assassin?

The idea that a Secret Service agent was ordered to stand down emerged on the online message board 4chan following Trump’s attempted assisination. The originator of the post, who supposedly goes by the name Jonathan Willis, claimed that they were a Secret Service sniper who was assigned to the rally, and that they were one of two law enforcement officers pictured on the roof at the event. 

“Willis” said he wrote the 4chan post to “inform the public” that he had the attempted assassin in his sights for “at least three minutes,” but was ordered not to shoot “the perp” by the head of the Secret Service. He went on to say that “the top brass” refused to give the order to shoot the assassin prior to the attack on Trump, saying it “prevented me from killing” the accused “before he took the shots at president Trump.”

The 4chan post is one of many claims that the attempted assisination was in some way staged or allowed to happen, but it was quickly refuted by more trusted authorities (this was on 4chan, after all). Both the Secret Service and the Butler Police Department issued statements debunking the claims, saying there are no agents, officers, or employees with the name of the person claiming to be the sniper. 

On top of this, AP Fact Check reported that no internet records of such an officer could be located. A spokesperson for the Secret Service said snipers are trained to act whenever they see a threat, and do not await instructions from higher-ups when attempting to neutralize a suspect. The spokesperson could not divulge details about Secret Service protocols, but confirmed that the 4chan post was indeed false. 

The ongoing investigation into the attempted assissination has found that witnesses alerted authorities to the accused, identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, when they spotted him perched on a nearby roof. An officer then approached the suspect, but retreated down a ladder when Crooks pointed the rifle at him. It was then that the suspect fired at Trump, scraping his ear and killing one rally attendee in the process.